Traditional fantasy roleplaying games

Abstracting missiles

Traditionally, combat rounds were one minute long, and a single attack roll determined the outcome of the entire sequence of feints, parries, dodges, and strikes that occurred durring that time. This is a simple system, and it works well with melee attacks, as they don’t use up any resources. The abstraction breaks down for missile weapons though, which require ammunition. Even if you shorten the round to 10 seconds (B/X) or 6 seconds (Third Edition), that doesn’t really address the problem if you want to keep combat abstract and fast-paced.

I posted a question on Google Plus about this topic, asking people for ideas about how to bridge the abstraction divide between melee and ranged combat. To be honest, tracking ammunition is not really that difficult, so this began more as an intellectual exercise. However, Jeremy M. of Over the Misty Mountains, suggested the following solution, which I quite like:

You could maybe resolve the problem by having several stages of depletion (maybe quiver depletion) and have them roll AFTER each combat. Making it more about how many they recover than how many they have. That keeps the resource management aspect but still skirts counting arrows

Here is a variation on his idea. I also like the option of allowing ranged attackers to spend more ammunition in exchange for a bonus or additional effect. It doesn’t complicate combat much (assuming the potential effects are simple), and gives players with characters wielding missile weapons an interesting choice to make every round.

Abstracting missiles

Collections of ammunition are tracked rather than individual arrows or bullets (quivers, cases, pouches, or whatever makes sense for the weapon in question). Ammunition does not run out durring combat (though see “volley” below). Instead, each weapon has an ammo die which is rolled after combat to determine if there is ammunition remaining. If the ammo check comes up 1, the current quiver is exhausted. The default ammo die is d6, though special weapons may use a different die. Rolling the ammo die also represents collecting any reusable ammunition, and the referee may assign penalties to the ammo check if recovering some ammunition would not be possible situationally (such as if firing across a chasm).

Ammo checks are not used for missile weapons that don’t have aggregate measures of ammunition, such as throwing axes or daggers. Depending on referee ruling, this ammunition rule may be used with bandoliers of throwing knives or shurikens. Referees may also opt to track ammunition more closely for special combats involving attrition, such as if characters are trapped in a foxhole. Special ammunition (where the rarity of an individual missile is important, such as an arrow of slaying) should be handled separately.

Volley

During combat, if using a weapon with ammunition, a ranged attacker may choose to expend more ammo in exchange for a bonus to attack or damage. This option requires an immediate ammo check, and if the ammo check fails the quiver is exhausted by the volley. This ammo check is in addition to the check required post-combat.

Because ammunition is still being tracked in aggregate units (quivers, clips, etc), resource management remains. An archer is potentially rewarded for thinking ahead and bringing extra quivers, though that comes at the cost of having less space for treasure or other equipment. Quivers, at least for arrows, are pretty bulky, and it’s hard to imagine carrying more than 2 or 3 and still operating efficiently.

Note that this also abstracts away reloading times. This is probably a good thing, as reload rates have far too large of an effect on combat efficacy. A two shot per round longbow just blows away a one shot every other round heavy crossbow, so consequently nobody ever uses heavy crossbows. Even if a heavy crossbow had significant bonuses against heavy armor (or something), the variance of the d20 means that you are probably better off with multiple shots and relying on lucky high numbers (though the exact probabilities will depend on other specifics).

That’s a nice way of doing it too. Someone in the G+ thread suggested something similar, deriving the ammo use from the attack roll. I kind of like the simplicity of being able to attach an ammo die to a weapon though, as it is a nice shorthand that could be quickly understood, for example, in a table of weapons. Also, the ammo die can be used for ancient technological artifacts in an interesting way.

If you wanted adapt these rules to the Heavy Crossbow vs Longbow scenario, give the heavy crossbow a d12 ammo dice. Bolts are tougher than arrows (I know ’cause I’ve dug em out of trees with a hatchet) and you fire them more slowly, so you go through less. It fires slower, but it hits like a mule and ammo supply is reliable.

I’d even consider a pass-through effect. If you kill an enemy with a heavy crossbow, you get a free attack on an adjacent enemy. I shot a modern crossbow through a sheet a plywood, through a 2×4 fence and down an alley one time!

On the whole, I prefer to just track the resources. Whilst I understand the worry as it relates to the combat round, which argues against torches and iron spikes as analogues, it seems to me that because combat is abstract it is not a big deal if the number of arrows shot is directly equivalent to the number of attack rolls made.

I don’t think I would use a rule like this. It is interesting and elegant, to be sure. And, I suppose, since I use the 6-second round, it wouldn’t even come into play in my games.

That said, it seems to me as though this removes all strategy from resource management. If I’ve got 20 arrows, then if I fire into combat once, I may as well fire as many times as I want, since the results will be the same afterwords.

With individual tracking, you need to think about the likelyhood of retrieving arrows, and whether or not you’ll need them later. With the volley, both of those considerations stop being relevant.

I think that, as a player, a rule like this would frustrate me. Anytime an opportunity to fire arrows came up, I would need to think “Is it worth potentially losing all of my arrows for this one shot?” I feel as though I would frequently opt to try something else, and save my arrows for an emergency.

Yeah, I hear you. Abstraction and resource management are uncomfortable bedfellows. That being said, when was the last time you have seen number of arrows actually really factor into strategy? Don’t players just end up buying lots and lots of ammo and then forgetting to check it off anyways? Also, note the special case for foxhole situations.

Regarding the volley rule, it’s only potentially losing all of your arrows if you don’t have any backup quivers. I would probably rule that it would take a round to switch to another quiver or case though, unless you had a retainer standing by.

I wonder how many arrows one can fire in a 10 seconds? What if you rolled 1dx after each attack roll for the number of arrows lost where x equaled that max number of arrows you could fire?

Or, roll 1d “half of x”, and 2d “half of x” for a volley.

Maybe there is a special consideration for careful aiming that allows you to only fire 1, but that seems like it would be all benefit. Aiming carefully seems to imply that you should only use one arrow and get a bonus to hit. To balance it a penalty to damage doesn’t make much sense.

That gets back to the number of arrows per round, which breaks the abstraction. I do kind of like the idea though, and you could balance it by making aiming and shooting a single arrow grant +1 to attack and shooting a volley of 1d6 arrows add +1 to damage.

In any case, the problem remains for me. The abstraction that breaks my suspension of disbelief is the notion that the sword swinging for 10 seconds might not actually HIT but it does a d8 of Hit Point “damage.” And, I’m fine with that, but I feel like an arrow or bolt or sling stone or spear… or a magic missile for that matter, They all either hit or they don’t. I don’t get how “misses” “damage” Hit Points. Morale damage for near misses just doesn’t ring true for me.

Missiles can physically hit and still do lesser or greater damage. For example, a glancing shot, a flesh wound, a dented piece of armor, etc. All of those can be hits without causing grievous wounds. This does not require higher-level abstraction like luck or morale to enter into hit points — every hit can still be a hit, just not a good one.

I am familiar with that argument, and I disagree. I just don’t see the back and forth of a sword duel as being similar enough to say, the orc tribes volley of arrows, or the elven marksman’s one shot.

To me the implication of using the same abstraction for missile and melee is that the whole world if full of crappy marksmen. Unless they are firing at herd animals for food (1 or 2 hd, on average 8 or less hp), they can’t be counted on to really bring down or even lock down a thing.

Where as, the swordsman locks down his opponent quite effectively by comparison.

I’ve prowled blogs for someone with the same thoughts as me and come to the conclusion I am alone, but thanks for humoring me 🙂

No worries. I think there are plenty of people that are dissatisfied with how D&D combat works. Remember that the average soldier has the same amount of expected HP as the amount of expected damage from a single hit (within some reasonable tolerance, depending on the specific edition), making one hit = one kill likely for non-levelled characters.

If you have ideas for making the system work differently while preserving interesting choices for players and not making the game all about combat, I would be interested in hearing them.

All true. If the whole world was full of beings with 3 hd or less, I would have no problem anymore. Its just as the HP start to balloon that my head starts to hurt.

Don’t get me wrong, I run B/X or 3.5 more or less RAW. It’s just that I’ve run so many other games over the years that I guess the bumps and warts on good old D&D just bug me a little more. It’s more of a game theory exercise for me anymore.

Which, takes me back to your OP… Savage Worlds has an abstract ammo mechanic for extras and NPCs… have you seen that?

I think they would work for automatics – quite well, but the limiting factor on guns the way I play them is reload time.

As to ability gateways I understand your revulsion, I like them more than class gateways and try to offset with skill buys, but as to they heavy x-bow – heck it’s not a barrier just a bonus. With longbows I am ok as really that’s a difficult weapon to use – a specialists. Perhaps not for rules light system, but where there’s more crunch?

Yeah, an ammo die abstracts away reload times, which means that damage dice should be lowered when using such a system. Guns could still have armor piercing qualities or something though, so it doesn’t necessarily make things blander (just anticipating a possible objection there).

Interesting to think of it as an ability score bonus rather than an ability score gateway. Maybe a successful strength check along with the shot to reload in the same round? That way it would not seem so much like an absolute threshold.

I’m finding that non-referee facing house rules are hard to make stick on G+ hangout games. Has that been your experience too?

I really like the idea behind this; in the next game scheduled for next Tuesday we are going to playtest this (along with other house rules, such as damage dice (stolen from waysoftheearth’s Hinterlands and Moria pbp).

This would work, but it seems like it would require tracking two totals. You would need to record (or remember) the points of damage done so far and the number of arrows left, and both of these numbers would change somewhat frequently. The thing I like about rolling for ammo exhaustion is that the only number you track is quivers, which changes rarely.

Also, this would mean that a bad shot would get more utility out of a quiver than a good shot, which seems counterintuitive (you could address this by modifying the damage point total using some measure of competency, I suppose).

Perhaps, but either way you’re tracking something on the character sheet, right? Either points used so far, or arrows remaining. It seems like you still potentially need to update the character sheet every time you take a shot. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding something? It does address the abstraction of missile combat at a general level, but not in a way that seems like it would be easier to use at the table.